California Horse History Project: The Three *Raswans

*Raswan 607 (Skowronek x Rim)

With this post, I hope to shed a little more light on the story of the Arabian stallion *Raswan, who sadly died before he could realize his full potential. It turns out that a young sculptor visited *Raswan at the Kellogg Ranch in April 1926, and captured the horse's image for a public display. It appears that there are only a few photographs of the sculptures, and as far as I have been able to tell, the sculptures and any sketches or smaller models of the images of *Raswan made by the artist are no longer with us.

In January 1926, cereal magnate W. K. Kellogg sent his stable manager, Carl Schmidt, to the renowned Crabbet Stud in England. Schmidt's mission was to purchase Arabian horses for Kellogg's ranch in Pomona, California. In April, Schmidt returned on the ship Minnewaska with fourteen Arabians and a Welsh Pony stallion. They were transferred from the ship to a Union Pacific train headed for Southern California, arriving in Pomona on April 10.

To indicate they were imported to the US, the horses' registered names included an asterisk ( * ); their American registration numbers follow their names.

The imported herd included four stallions foaled in England and two that arrived in utero and were foaled at the Kellogg Ranch. The four adult horses were:

*Nasik 604 (Rijm x Narghileh), an 18 year old bay

*Raswan 607 (Skowronek x Rim), a five year old gray

*Raseyn 597 (Skowronek x Rayya), a three year old gray half-brother to *Raswan

*Rimal 599 (Hazzam x Rim), a bay yearling

*Raseyn and *Nasik became internationally famous sires;*Rimal was gelded and sold. But at the time of the importation, the stallion who showed the most promise for Mr. Kellogg's breeding program was *Raswan. (He had already sired three purebred Arabians in England.)

Equine historian Carol Woodbridge Mulder observed:

A very high quality, beautiful horse of outstanding classic type, he was the better of the two Skowronek sons....

*Raswan, with Carl Schmidt in "desert garb"

But that promise was never realized. Schmidt and Kellogg had a bitter dispute over who really owned *Raswan. On May 7, 1926, Schmidt rode the horse off the Kellogg property across the hills to an isolated house in Walnut, tying him by his bridle to a fence. *Raswan broke loose and ran into a hay mowing machine in a field, grievously injuring one hind foot. Veterinarians tried to save him, but they ended up having to put *Raswan down on June 12, 1926. (For details of this complex story, please see Mary Jane Parkinson's detailed description in her book Romance of the Kellogg Ranch. Mulder does a good job of summarizing the story in her article "The W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch, Part VI -- 1926 Crabbet Purchase Males" in The Crabbet Influence, November-December 1987.)

Sadly, there are very few known photographs of *Raswan, and only one, very short, film clip of him that I could find on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Pa6qWvq31JU

*Raswan, in a screen grab from Lonny Hitchens' film clip on YouTube

But that isn't the whole story of *Raswan in California. It turns out that, a couple of weeks after *Raswan arrived at the Kellogg Ranch in April 1926, a young artist sketched him and created three sculptures of *Raswan. And thanks to the resources of Cal Poly Pomona Special Collections' W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library, we can connect the art and the artist to the horse.

The artist was the renowned California sculptor L. P. (Lorraine Preston) Prescott, later known as Preston L. Prescott (1898-1988). Born in Iowa, Prescott studied art in Minnesota, New York, and Los Angeles. After serving in World War I, Prescott lived at an American Legion post in Southern California for disabled veterans for a few years. Prescott worked in the film industry creating components for movie sets, and creating wax portraits of celebrities. In the 1930s he moved to Ojai, in Ventura County, where he had a well-known art studio, and in 1945 he moved to Ben Lomond, near Santa Cruz in Northern California. Prescott went on to have a distinguished career as an artist and arts educator.

What's less well-known is Prescott's work creating components for the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce's massive displays of citrus fruit for local agricultural exhibitions in the 1920s. And that's where the Arabian stallion *Raswan comes in.

In April 1926, the LA Chamber had reached out to the Kellogg Ranch, asking permission for their sculptor to visit the Ranch and make sketches of one of the horses. W. K.'s son, Dr. Karl H. Kellogg, gave his permission for the artist to sketch one of the recent imports: *Raswan.

From the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library,
Cal Poly Pomona

April 23, 1926

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce

Los Angeles, Calif.

Gentlemen:

I am giving Mr. L. P. Prescott permission to go ahead and make sketch of Arabian horse Raswan, to be used in Grecian exhibit at Anaheim Orange Show.

Yours respectfully,

[KHK]

Sometime between April 23 and April 26, Prescott came to the Kellogg Ranch to sketch and model *Raswan. On the 26th, Chamber Secretary and General Manager Arthur G. Arnoll wrote his thanks to Mr. Kellogg:

From the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library,
Cal Poly Pomona

April 26, 1926

Mr. W. K. Kellogg

Box 207, Pomona, California

My dear Mr. Kellogg:

I want to take this opportunity to express our appreciation for your kindness in allowing our sculptor to make drawings and models of one of your fine Arabian stallions.

I presume he has told you that the finished product will be used in the Anaheim Orange Show where our exhibit will consist of three white horses hitched to a chariot.

Again expressing our appreciation, I am

Yours very truly,

LOS ANGELES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

(signed) A. G. Arnoll

Secretary and General Manager

The "Anaheim Orange Show" in the letters was formally known as the Sixth Annual California Valencia Orange Show. It was held in Anaheim from May 13 to 23, 1926.

I haven't been able to find any evidence that Prescott's drawings and models of *Raswan survived, but there are a few photos of the final result of the artist's time with the stallion. These images show three larger-than-life-sized horses pulling a chariot driven by a mannequin, atop a display of fresh ripe citrus fruit, forming a sort of "orange brick road" for the chariot.

The next photo shows us the scale of the sculpture. Ruth Henle, a secretary at a local medical clinic and member of the Anaheim Business and Professional Women's Club, posed next to the three *Raswans in a photo that appeared in a number of Southern California newspapers. (In reality she was Mrs., not Miss, Henle, meaning that she continued to work after her marriage, which was not all that common in the 1920s.)

A full page spread in the 23 May 1926 Los Angeles Times showed just how over-the-top the display entries at the Orange Show were.

Prescott's work, featuring the three *Raswans pulling the chariot, won a major award.

Anaheim Gazette, 20 May 1926

Prescott had to turn around his finished work rather quickly; I haven't found any mention of what medium/media he may have used. The 27 May 1926 issue of the Anaheim Gazette reported that the three horses were dapple gray (as was *Raswan).

Prescott did another, perhaps more realistic, horse statue for the Chamber; it appeared in the 1928 Valencia Orange Festival in San Bernardino, above an even more impressive display of oranges. But the horse wasn't an Arabian this time. There are two photos of the statue in the Los Angeles Public Library collection. You can see the photos here:

https://calisphere.org/item/ceaded88f2d4fe0d4ddbc07b69476399/

The caption reads: "L.P. Prescott is sculpting "Joan of Arc" on the Ambassador Hotel grounds. His model is Mrs. Mildred Perlee ("Aarai"), a dancer, who is posing on Dexter, a light cavalry jumping horse owned by Maj. A.L.P. Sands of the 82nd Field Artillery, Ft. Bliss, Texas."

https://calisphere.org/item/ecfc219fe479c826f5f959965703b551/

Here's the near-life-size version of the statue at the San Bernardino Orange Festival display.

Seeing these images gives us insight into the way Prescott worked in the 1920s. Because the final version of the Chamber's 1926 entry in the Orange Show in Anaheim shows three horses in action, I surmise that Prescott saw *Raswan running at liberty in a paddock or field at the Kellogg Ranch in April 1926, and made "sketches and models" of him on site, as noted in the Chamber's thank-you letter to Mr. Kellogg.

Preston L. Prescott is probably best known today for his statue of the Hugo Reid family. It's currently located on the grounds of the Gilb Museum in Arcadia.

Los Angeles Times, 27 July 1937

Photo by the author

Prescott died in Santa Cruz in 1988. I reached out to the artist's family through an online ancestry site, but they are not aware of any of his papers or drawings that would show us his impressions of *Raswan. (If only...!)

*Raswan's story is indeed tragic, but I find some solace in knowing that, for the brief period of time when the young artist visited the Kellogg Ranch, *Raswan personified the beauty and grace of the Arabian horse.

___________________________________________________

*Raswan's half-brother *Raseyn was the subject of several works of art. Here's a film clip of sculptor Annette St. Gaudens with *Raseyn at the Kellogg Ranch in 1929.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZhqxVdSnI

This smallish headstudy of *Raseyn was created in 1934 by Lawrence Tenney Stevens. It's part of the collection of the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library.